Scheherazade Or, 5 Lies Kate Austen Always Tells
by ainsleyhayes
Summary: Legend says that Scheherazade was a Persian queen who delayed her execution by weaving elaborate tales. Kate Austen tells the tales she knows best, the lies she always tells. Oneshot.


Scheherazade (Or, Five Lies Kate Austen Always Tells)

By Molly Connelley, aka Ainsley Hayes

A/N: Legend says that Scheherazade was a Persian queen who delayed her execution by weaving elaborate tales (The Book of One Thousand and One Nights). Kate Austen tells the lies she knows best, the lies she always tells.

Rating: PG – PG-13… nothing bad, I guess it's just a bit dark.

Characters: Kate, Jack, Tom, Diane, the marshal (Jate overtones)

Spoilers: Pre-season 3, general, basically any Kate episodes from seasons 1 and 2.

Disclaimer: I don't own Lost or any of the character. I'm poor and making absolutely no profit from this.

January 19, 2007

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_1. I'm not self-destructive. _

She tells this lie to anyone who accuses her of intentionally throwing away the good things in her life. She says that she doesn't ruin things for herself, doesn't ruin everyone around her.

She knows that she does.

She knows that she chose her path in life; she understands free will. More than that, she knows that if she goes down, she won't take anyone with her.

She destroyed her mother. She destroyed Tom, and from what she knows of his capacity to love, she destroyed his family, too.

So now she just destroys herself.

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_2. I won't let anyone in. _

This is the lie she tells herself.

As hard as she tries, she's never been good at being alone. Even though she knows the cost of caring for her, she selfishly aches for human contact.

Sometimes it burns her, and she gets betrayed.

Sometimes, she is the betrayer.

She put up carefully crafted walls when they landed on the island, vowing not to betray or be betrayed again.

But she is weak and let her guard down once again, unable to resist the enigmatic pull of the dark hero, Jack Shephard. She tries so hard to deny the compassion he elicits from her.

And when she finally gives in, she ruins him, too.

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_3. I was never a normal girl. _

She tells this lie to the marshal, more than anyone. She didn't speak to him often, but when she did, she never told him the truth.

She says it to Tom, in his kitchen, in the home he shares with his wife and child. She's aware that he knows better, but it doesn't stop the lie from leaving her lips.

She doesn't tell Jack that she took piano lessons, that she gave Sam a kiss on the cheek every night before bed, that her mother read her stories when she was sick. She doesn't tell him that she, Kate Austen, actually played house, princess, doctor.

She can't admit to herself that there was once a time when she was happy. When she was just an innocent, freckle-faced farm girl who loved to play in the dirt like one of the boys and ride horses until sundown.

She can't admit that it wasn't always broken arms and black eyes.

Because when she does, it brings a whole new kind of pain.

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_4. I don't regret what I did. _

This is the lie she tells to anyone who has seen the skeletons in her closet – Jack, the marshal, Tom… even herself. She vows that she doesn't regret it and that she never will.

For the most part, it is the truth. She made a conscious choice to do what she did: to kill Wayne. She knew the consequences of her actions, but felt the benefit of removing him from the earth was worth the risk.

But the fallout was something she couldn't have ever prepared herself for.

Having the label of 'killer' and 'fugitive' was sometimes too intense for the farm girl to handle. What was worse was hearing her own mother say those names. Hearing her own mother scream for help at the sight of the daughter that killed her abuser.

Sitting next to Tom's bleeding dead body was harder than anything she'd ever done. That is, until she left him there. She never looked back, but she's sure that she was publicly scorned as the cause of his death.

And she knows it's the truth.

She regrets that more than anything.

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_5. I was born to run. _

She thinks that this will be her epitaph. Everyone that has ever cared for her would say they lost her to her own restlessness, her own wild spirit.

There are few who know how wrong this is.

She can barely admit it to herself, but she doesn't run because of her nature. She runs for fear of a cage.

When she sits on the beach, alone in her thoughts, she battles with herself, thinks that this is a weak argument that means nothing. But she knows that it's all she has.

She sleeps under the stars at night, sinking into the sand. Even with all of the dangers of the island, to be blanketed in stars makes her feel safe. When she's staring up at the constellation Sam taught her as a little girl, she is taken back to a time when she was young, innocent, free.

A time when she didn't have to lie.

But then morning comes, and she's no longer innocent, and she knows what they all think: that she was born to run.

And she can't find the truth in herself to tell them, to tell him, that she wasn't always like this, won't always be like this. Can't tell him that she's terrified.

So she tells the lies she knows best, the lies she always tells.

Because the truth is that she doesn't remember _what _the truth is anymore.

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_-Fine_


End file.
